McDonald’s has brought back Monopoly! At first, I didn’t think it was such a shocker until I saw that it was highly searched according to Google trends. Apparently the Monopoly game is more popular than I had thought. I actually think it’s more popular than McDonald’s itself. Eat McDonald’s and get the chance to win cash. Great! Because if you win, you’ll need to money to hire a personal trainer to work off all of that fat.

McDonald’s allegedly rigged the contest a few years ago. The claim was that the company was sending different pieces to different locations in the world. This made it almost impossible to actually get the pieces needed in order to win a decent prize.  The odds of winning the big prize at McDonald’s ($1,000,000 USD) is practically zero. McDonald’s prints a few game pieces for certain properties and then creates millions of others (this explains why you get the same piece 10 times in a week). You are likely to never find Boardwalk as this is the piece that holds the HUGE prize (and only three of them are printed).

This year it’s likely to be a lot different, even if McDonald’s does decide to spread it’s little Monopoly pieces all over the world. There are now websites that allow people to trade their pieces with others and people are posting pieces on sites like Craigslist and eBay in order to find the missing pieces or sell some of the more commonly found ones.

If you decide to get in on the McDonald’s Monopoly game, stick to the cheaper items like hash browns and sweet tea (which both go for $1 on the value menu). Try to avoid eating McDonald’s too often or you’ll risk significant weight gain and possibly other health problems.